Student service at St. A’s requires asking “Just what are you willing to sacrifice?’

Miranda Groux, Crier Staff

The Princeton Review recently ranked Saint Anselm as sixth in the nation for “Most Engaged in Community Service.” Collectively, the Saint Anselm community completes nearly eighteen hundred hours of community service every year.

The typical Saint Anselm student likely has experience with community service, and can recall meaningful moments throughout their time serving. When we reflect on our experiences with service, we often think of the people who have changed us. This might be a Service and Solidarity Mission trip leader or a Meelia Center site coordinator, but more often than not, it’s the people we serve who change us.

Students may go as far as to say their engagement with community service changes their life. When we reflect on our experiences with service, we often think of the people who have changed us.

In 2014, I volunteered at the Manchester Homeless Services Center. We worked to serve our guests a meal, provide them with showers, and give them a space to apply for jobs. I got to know a woman named Shelly.

Shelly had pink streaks in her white hair, and a contagious, crooked smile. Her face was worn and her eyes were sad. Shelly told me the story of how she got laid off from her job, and eventually she couldn’t pay rent. She told me it could have happened to anyone; so it goes, it happened to her.

Her goal was to get a job, make it to a women’s transitional home called Angie’s Place, and get back on her feet. She had spent a few years on the streets, and she was getting anxious. Shelly and I talked frequently during my time at the center. She told me about her childhood, her passions, and her dreams for the future.

Shelly told me how thankful she was for the center, and how she wasn’t sure where she’d have been without their help.

One afternoon, Shelly came through the meal line with her crooked smile, exclaiming loudly for everyone to hear, “Miranda! I made it to Angie’s Place!”

Her eyes were alive and hopeful for the first time in months. She went around thanking everyone in the center for everything they did for her. As Shelly thanked me, I realized I ought to be the one thanking her.

I listened actively to Shelly’s story and served her meals, but I did not change her life and end her homelessness. Contrarily, Shelly changed my life by offering me her story.

Picture of MHSC Volunteers as of 2014. The author, Miranda Groux, is pictured in the lower right corner.
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Picture of MHSC Volunteers as of 2014. The author, Miranda Groux, is pictured in the lower right corner.

I started to think about broader questions: how do I ensure Shelly’s story stops repeating itself? How do I really give back? How do I effectively promote social change?

In 2015, the center closed down due to lack of funding. I was a temporary helping hand, and my hands were no longer needed when the center closed; yet the injustice of homelessness persisted.

Consider injustice a festering wound. Engaging in community service applies a bandage to that wound, and it covers something ugly that many of us are uncomfortable looking at.

But over time, that bandage comes off. We can keep reapplying these bandages, but how many quick fixes will it take before we confront the reality that this is a wound that requires a different kind of attention?

We have to stop and consider why our service is needed. Our service is needed because of deeply rooted systemic issues that perpetuate injustice.

Our entire world is built on classism, racism, and sexism and other paradigms of oppression. This is the reason homelessness, drug addiction, racial profiling, police brutality, environmental racism, sexual assault, human trafficking, and countless other injustices exist as both domestic and international epidemics.

To truly heal this wound, we must engage in comprehensive policy change. We must step out of our comfort zones and insist that each and every one of us work with our elected officials toward unpacking what it means to create a more just world.

Many of us at Saint Anselm have taken the time to listen to the experiences of the oppressed. Some of us have shared our own stories about our identities and experiences with oppression.

With open hearts and open minds, we have allowed ourselves to be changed by those we’ve served. Service has been, is, and will always be an important part of what it means to be Anselmian- there is no disputing its value and importance.

But why do we stop at service? Why do we allow ourselves to be changed by those we serve, and seek no further justice? We have the power and the privilege to be a voice for the voiceless.

Putting a bandage on a festering wound is simple. Healing a festering wound can be difficult. But the wounded are counting on all of us.

It might be the little boy who sat on your shoulders in Costa Rica. It might be the elderly woman who needed your hand to hold one afternoon. It might be the survivor of a natural disaster in Louisiana. It might be someone like Shelly who endured a broken system and experienced homelessness.

I am involved in service because the people I serve change my life; I am involved in political activism because I want to change people’s lives. When reflecting on your service at Saint Anselm, ask yourself who is counting on you, and what you are willing to sacrifice for a more just world.